[choppaface]

I have two friends who told me they were trying to get competing offers so that they could use it in their promo packet. One was in the ads team, extremely sharp guy, trying to make Staff level in his 3rd year there.

Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, had a giant competing offering from Facebook. Turned it down to stay at Google, got some more freedom, and now we have Kubernetes (!).

If you look on Blind, there is plenty of discussion of using counter offers to force the promo process to work.

[ceras]

I worked at Google for nearly a decade, and as a manager for most of it, and I strongly believe there's a misunderstanding here. Google does negotiate pay of high L5+ performers against outside offers, but promos are simply off the table. Google is really conservative about diluting it's leveling bar, and would much rather give well-above-band counter offers than a promotion.

Moreover, promo decisions are made by a committee of engineers who don't work with you -- they have no incentive to even care about your outside offer.

[joshuamorton]

I've literally never seen mention of this on blind. I see jokes about leaving and then returning at L+1, but never "forcing promo" via a competing offer.

[aikinai]

I know someone who did it, but that was a few years ago during the peak of talent competition with Facebook. And the person was clearly qualified for the promo anyway.

[esprehn]

It's unlikely the promo was because of the competing offer. During that time with Facebook they gave generous retention grants though.

The promo process is fairly opaque, so there's no way someone would know if the committee or manager took a competing offer into account or if they "forced it".

It seems more likely they were qualified and the timing was coincidental with the competing offer.

[deadmutex]

> Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, had a giant competing offering from Facebook. Turned it down to stay at Google, got some more freedom, and now we have Kubernetes (!).

Is this public knowledge? Otherwise, I think it is uncool to talk about other people's situations on a public forum without their approval.